It is customary to place decorations adjacent to a tombstone or other grave marker by placing a container having flowers or other decorations therein adjacent to such stone on the ground. This creates a problem for cemetery caretakers who mow around tombstones, grave markers and the like. Consequently, cemeteries have promulgated rules requiring that decorations such as flowers, plants, plastic flowers and the like must be removed prior to the days that the mowing and trimming around the grave markers is to be done. Typically, however, people placing such decorations near a grave want the decorations to be displayed as long as possible and are greatly inconvenienced by the necessity to return to the gravesite to remove such decorations prior to the mowing and trimming process.
Because the aforementioned problem is a long-standing one, certain solutions to the problem have been proposed over the years. For example, in 1924 U.S. Pat. No. 1,492,048 granted to Reilly proposed to build a flower box recess into a tombstone or the like so that flowers can be permanently planted therein or a planter box can be received within the recess of such a stone. In 1953, U.S. Pat. No. 2,639,878 was granted to Pierce wherein it was proposed that a planter box or the like is supported on a tombstone base and is held in place by stakes which extend into the ground adjacent to the base of the tomstone. In 1964, U.S. Pat. No. 3,142,934 was granted to Mehling which shows a metal vase-like structure with a suction cup on the bottom thereof for attaching to the base of a tombstone or the like to keep the vase up off the ground and obviating the necessity to return and remove the flower or plant holder prior to a mowing and trimming day.
Despite these various attempts to solve the aforementioned problem over the years, these patented structures have not come into widespread commercial usage, it is speculated for the reason that they are not entirely practical and suffer from many shortcomings.